


Beacon of hope

by Kes



Series: Thor 2 Rewritten: The Shaded Tree [4]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-01-19 00:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1448005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kes/pseuds/Kes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wars are ended, and the time is come to celebrate, to mourn, and to usher in a new era for Asgard and the Nine Realms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

From space, the Realm Eternal shines. Around the rim the waterfalls plunge from glittering seas, throwing out bright vapour into the darkness of the abyss. Light from the sun, the nearby stars and the great planets of the system catch the spires of luminary quartz that lie exposed here and there on the underside, and the snowy mountains of the top surface gleam gold.

Among them lie the great cities of Asgard. Valaskjalf, on the east plain, its shimmering spires now stripped and dull, its waterworks halted, its greenery beginning to reclaim it, its needle-thin bridge to the cosmos broken and dismembered. There is Rafnskog, with its high stone heights rising from the cloaking forest, and Fensalir, low, mist-filled and full of proud monster-prowed ships. There is Konungadal, at the heart of the long valley rolling through the heart of the mountains from east to north-west, and there Thrudvangar, the three halls with their huddled houses around them upon the bleak highlands. Around the bays of the south-east lie the jutting turrets of Sokkvahaug, built around and over the water, and beyond it towards the heart of the world Vitkelda huddles into the clefts and channels of the old luminary mines.

In the far north-west is Gladsheim, first home of Asgard’s ruling dynasty, nestled in steep cliffs and waterfalls. Old coexists uneasily with new, and the throne has resettled here as though into an outgrown shell; the lower city is hopelessly crowded, the palace insufficient for the court, and the whole edged with the taint of crumbling and fading even in the bright sun of high noon.

Thor cannot decide whether or not he likes not walking through the scenery of his memories here.

Once his father proclaims the peace, he will have to re-enter formally through the procession galleries and the throne-hall. Today, though, he takes the side entrance and jogs along the corridors towards the Golden Walk, where Odin will no doubt be making his customary rounds; the shouts of drill announce loud and clear that training takes place here today for inspection. The Walk overlooks the parade complex, one side left open so that a visitor, native or foreign, can see the might of Asgard’s armies, and the other side covered with legion standards and banners of victory. These days, some of them are his. Thor walks faster.

Odin is leaning more heavily on the parapet of the walk than Thor thinks he wants anyone to notice, but he still looms huge in seeming with his crimson cloak flapping in the cold wind and the bright gold accents on his armour. “Do you bring me good news, my son?” he asks, turning.

“I do. Vanaheim is at peace, and even Youghai reaffirms your sovereignty.” They exchange a rare smile. Odin asks for the whole story and Thor gives it.

“So I can proclaim the peace?”

“You can.” Perhaps when it is proclaimed, it will finally seem real to him.

Odin claps him on the side of the neck and nods approvingly. “You have done fine work.”

“Thank you.” Silence falls, and Odin turns to look out across the courtyards towards the mountains, his mouth tight. “What is wrong, Father?”

“Nothing beyond the ordinary,” he replies, too fast, as though there is something to cover. Thor feels his throat constricting. Odin sighs. “You have done fine work, and yet you will stand before me at the ceremony and proclaim the victory mine.”

In the over-long pause, Thor says, “As it is. You are the king, and leading from the war chamber is no less leading than on the battlefield, though you have not been absent there.” His heart still hammers in his chest.

“No, Thor.” A gust of wind sweeps along the Walk, catching both red cloaks, and Odin turns towards him. “The Proclamation of the Peace, four days from now as the skies lie open in the Convergence, will be a good day to proclaim your accession.”

It takes his best court discipline to keep his hands still and the sudden lurching of his stomach from showing on his face. His mind is racing, but nothing sounds right – he discards a dozen responses with varying degrees of truth to them. By the time he thinks he has something, Odin is talking again.

“This is your victory, the day of triumph should be yours as well. It is time, my son. You have learned, you have listened, you have worked hard, you have grown. I have been watching you closely, and you are ready. Perhaps moreso than I.”

Unable to hold himself impassive anymore, Thor turns back outwards to the training courtyard. His breath is tearing at the inside of his throat, his fingers itch for Mjollnir and the clean feel of air, the safety of being _away from here_. Every time someone remarks on his successes or how much he has grown in the past couple of years he has felt like this. He isn’t ready, not yet – there is so much to do, and he needs more time to figure out how to do it, even figure out what exactly needs to be done. Eventually he manages to say, “I do not think it is a good time, Father.”

“It is the best time, and you will see it if you still your troubled heart. This is your birthright, and there is nothing to be gained from delaying it.” The one-eyed gaze is uncomfortably penetrating. “The mortal is –”

“This is not about Jane Foster,” he says, and instantly regrets it.

“Then what?”

Thor doesn’t answer. Even if he could open his mouth, he can’t find the words to explain it, and even if he could, he can’t find wordings that are fit for his father to hear.

“You’re afraid. I know. I was too, when my father told me this.” Odin’s hand is on his shoulder and he feels a child again. If they had not been in full sight of the courtyards, he might have wept. “You will find your courage. All will be well; you are twice the man you were last time I tried to do this. Go on, my son. Celebrate with your warriors. It will get easier.”

 _It won’t._ He starts to step away, says in a voice that he thinks sounds casual, “I need to wash.”

The shouts of the soldiers in the courtyards sound strangely far away, and a cloud is creeping across the sky, towards the sun. He reaches the turn of the walk before Odin calls out. “Thor! When you have cleaned yourself up, go and visit your mother. She wants to see you.”


	2. Chapter 2

As Thor washes himself down, he peers out at the sky. Four days before it will split open and Odin will let the news of peace reverberate through the opened paths of Yggdrasill – and not just news of peace. He gulps, swallows the whirling panic again. _You have known that day must come. You wanted this._

He lifts his arm and catches a gust of his own sweat, and is almost glad of it. There has been little time to take armour off, let alone wash; at least now he will have time to go to the bathhouse once or twice before the procession. Gradually the smell dissipates under his ministrations, and he twists to look at the half-healed scar along his ribcage. He is lucky, he knows; most people who were hit with the huge, armour-piercing siege arrows at Gylltavangar died. This one had brushed along him, barely noticed as he hung in the sky giving lightning cover to his men on the ships. After that, he’d been more careful.

The only new damage is a bruise on his leg where someone had unsuccessfully tried to trip him. Gently he touches it – trivial. Still, he crosses the room to the long table and takes a dab of ointment from the silver serpent jar, spreads it on the skin, first on his leg and then on the ribcage wound. They will heal without his intervention, but it’s something to concentrate on.

Without any enthusiasm, he looks over at the clothes lying on the bench. Still, there is Mother to greet, and he does look forward to that; during this war, he feels he has barely seen her. Picking up his comb, he wills it into life and runs it through his hair, feeling the water dissipate as it goes.

It will be the first time he has dressed for peace rather than war for too long, and the steely-grey overtunic with the red highlights was obviously last altered before _everything went wrong_ ; he makes a mental note to send to the tailors. It does not matter now, though, and he tucks the fastenings into each other and shoves his feet into boots that aren’t reinforced against a well-placed sword.

When he finds her, his mother is standing between two lecterns with her hands busy over a loose sheaf of pages and a codex open on the other. “Hallerna Sinirsdottir is working on a new history of the second great war of Alfheim, and I requested an early look at it.”

“Is it satisfactory?”

“The style will attract no imitators, but the content is acceptable. I have some corrections about Vidholm, but otherwise only minor problems.” Frigga smiles and sweeps towards him. “It’s good to see you.”

She pulls him into her arms and he gives her a squeeze, a lump forming in his throat. “I feel the same.”

Pulling back, she looks him up and down. “No horrible wounds, no armour – is this peace?”

“It is.”

“Oh, I am pleased. Can I get the story from you, or will I have to come and listen to Volstagg’s rendition sometime? Come and sit down.”

“Well, his will be far more entertaining than mine. Besides, I did not see the start of the battle.” He tells it anyway, because if anyone deserves the story from his mouth it is his mother, and it seems simpler the second time of telling. When he gets to the Golden Walk, though, he stumbles on his words. “Father wants to proclaim my accession at the ceremony.”

His mother is silent for a long time, too long. “I think it is time,” she says, eventually. “You will be a good king.”

“What have I missed in Asgard?” he says, changing the subject rather than trying to have that conversation again.

For the second time that day, he feels tension snap into place in the silence between a parent and himself. “Well, little enough. It has been quiet here, apart from the calls of the criers. People sense victory. There have been small doings in the court, but nothing of concern; Dagrun Farulfsdottir had her child, a boy named Lifstein. The thing of most note... your brother’s trial is finished.”

Oh. He’s clenching the bench hard, so hard it hurts, so hard his fingers are white. The trial has been ongoing, a thing of greater shadows and secrecy than any ordinary trial, ever since he brought Loki home, and he had always meant to ask Father to see him before it was over, do more than just relate his story for his father’s consideration. He had meant to be there, for all the thought turned his bones to ice. “Is it?”

“Yes.” She tells him the sentence, her voice cracking, and he focusses on the small details of the carved flagstones on the floor. “I have found him – your father intended him to remain hidden – but I have not gone there yet either in form or in person.”

“I am glad you are going,” he says slowly. If anyone has a chance to reach Loki, he thinks, it’s their mother.

“Will you come?”

All he can see when he thinks of his brother is a snarling face that he barely recognises or his dwindling form as he falls and falls and falls. _Sentiment – I’m not your brother – I remember you tossing me into an abyss – I’ll pay her a visit myself – your father – Father is dead – shall we test that? – I have to destroy Jotunheim – there is only the war – I never was –_ “No! I mean, not yet.”

She places her hand over his. “All right. All right.”

If he stays here – he still feels shame when he thinks of the overturned table, but he is still the same man, knows the same urges. “I am expected in Rogeir’s halls,” he says, voice shaking, and gets up blindly. Before he gets to the door, though, he remembers something. “Mother... is this why Father said you wanted to see me?”

“Yes,” Frigga says, softly, and turns away before he can see what the expression on her face is. “Make sure you don’t celebrate too riotously.” Her tone, as she returns to the lecterns, is decidedly matter-of-fact.

He tries to match it, almost grateful for the subject change. “I think Fandral is the one in need of that warning.”

“Then I will make sure he gets it, since his mother’s not here to give it to him.”

“I will pass it on.”


	3. Chapter 3

Frigga stays at the manuscript until she is confident in her calm. It won’t hold, not when she gets down into that distant corner of the dungeons and sees Loki for the first time since before the sentencing, but she should not start with Thor’s hurt, Odin’s outstretched hand, shaking her. At least she now knows he will make no move to stop her. The work is not difficult, but it is distracting; the distant past no longer holds its sting, and she takes a strange sort of pleasure in making small corrections over motive and means.

Finished, she tidies up, closes the codex carefully and lays a cloth over the manuscript, already thinking of what’s to come. This spell is difficult; she learned to cast illusions when she was a grown woman, and they have never come as fluently to her as the magic of the pattern or the energy channels. It is the focus that is the problem, and the complete memory that creates the perfect representation; ever since this began, she has had to work on that so that the face Loki sees when she arrives is her true one, not her face when she was still barely grown. Still, she builds the dungeon in her mind from its position in the model, sets up the resonance, and slowly, slowly...

...steps out of herself and into the bright white cell. They are proof against magic from the inside, but an outsider can easily step through. “Loki,” she says, although she knows he’s seen her.

“Hello, Mother,” he replies, but doesn’t move his gaze from where it is fixed on the wall. His hair is lacklustre and his skin translucent from even this short a length of imprisonment. “I thought you’d got lost.”

 _Is that a strike?_ “As though I could. How are you?” As she speaks, she moves to face him and interrupt that determined glare at the wall. Sure enough, as soon as she crosses it, his hand tightens on the chair and his eyes flicker upwards.

A muscle moves in his cheek. “Aside from being dead?” He swings his leg off the table and stands, taller than even this projected image of her.

This time, there’s no golden dome of light between them, but Odin hangs there all the same, and she can see the lost face of the younger man he was then as well as the child she raised. _I failed you._ “You are not dead.” She hesitates, torn between defending Odin and the fear of giving false hope.

“Really? I distinctly remember being declared so. Or am I to believe that not only did I hallucinate my birthright, but even my recent past?”

Once, it had been Thor that taxed her to breaking point. “Your father acts for a reason.” Frigga catches the clasping and unclasping of the fist, and presses on before he can say a word. “He does not want you dead, but your actions have forced his hand. What –”

“And what was so terrible about my actions? What have I done that he and his family have not done a thousand times over? Where was the line? I don’t remember it in all those lessons I had, all that training for the throne.” He takes an impatient step to the side, as though he wants to walk off past the gold energy channels that bound the cell.

If she leaves now, she will lose him forever. She steps closer again. “Do you not? Because I do. A king protects, a king brings peace and order. Not threats of his own making, or a dagger in a brother’s ribs. You know better than that, Loki.”

“How?” Before she can form an answer to him, he laughs, that bitter, false laugh that she swears she never heard before all this. _If only this form were corporeal._ “Are you here to show me the error of my ways?”

As he speaks, his mouth twists, and her throat tightens. “I’m here because you’re my son, and –”

“You want to pretend it was all real.” He turns away, pacing, the words spilling out of his mouth as though he can’t stop them – _isn’t trying_ – and all of them hurt. “Pretend I am not what I am, pretend you can control me, pretend all your lies were real – it’s no _use_! It’s _not_ real, it never was!”

Instinct sends Frigga reaching for him, but she stops just before her form breaks against his corporeal arm, doesn’t cry because that’s the last thing he needs to see. “Was it not?” she says, say more, but her insides are all twisted up, her heart burns in her chest. _If it wasn’t real, why are you crying and why am I?_

He’s staring at her hand, doesn’t look into her eyes as he says in a voice that sounds like it would rather scream, “No. It wasn’t.”

“Then why does it hurt?”

Before she notices he’s doing it, Loki has reached up and touched her hand. The illusion breaks against it; always fragile as a moth’s wing, it has never stood up to the disruption of another thinking being’s touch. She holds it as long as she can, wants to swear to return, but the voice is gone out of it and she can only hope he knows.

There are a lot of things she has hoped he knew, and so many of those hopes have proved to be vain.


	4. Chapter 4

“If the troll was in here,” Sif tells the assembled semi-circle of assorted wide eyes, “its head would scrape along the roof and tear out all of the rafters.” The adults laugh appreciatively, soldiers, their wives, their families, a few others; these are Rogeir’s halls, just outside the side door of the main legion barracks. The children are more attentive, less knowing, and she leans in close to Kylfa’s little daughter Eyfrid and says, “I had to crane my neck, all the way up, just to even see it.”

“No!” Volstagg slams his tankard down on the table. “It would not have even fit under this roof! It might have crawled inside, once it had knocked down the walls, but if it had stood up, why, the snow outside would even now be settling in our hair.”

“And diluting our beer!” Arnfinn remarks. “And I thought we were lost – no matter how valiant the warrior, his heart would have quailed to see that terrible sight.”

Volstagg takes up the tale again. “Its roar shook the trees, set the yurts quivering – even my beard betrayed me and flew backwards!” His words are greeted with a shout of laughter.

“We were all too close,” she says. “Its terrible footsteps were shaking the ground in strides the width of this whole room.” Someone calls out that they were longer, someone else that they were heavier. She raises her tankard to them, grins. “I looked at it and I could see nowhere I could stick my blade, nowhere at all.”

“But then,” calls Sigvard, his face suddenly sombre, “then Hasteinn flew forward, sword ablaze, and in that moment he seemed as tall as the rock troll.”

“Taller! I thought he would step on me,” Arnfinn says. “But he was but the size of you and I, and he took his sword and struck a terrible blow to the troll.”

This, too, is part of the tradition. “It bellowed in pain, and it seemed like the world would come apart. But then it hefted its mighty club, faster than anyone could have believed –”

“So fast you could barely see!”

“And hit Hasteinn square in the gut. But in the time it took for the fight to end, our forces had regrouped; and that was Hasteinn’s doing.” The circle is silent for a second, and she waits the moment out before she adds, “And his soul feasts in Valhalla tonight, so let’s pour him a drink!” The empty cups are all set along the table; some have gone by, the drinks poured for the dead, but more have not. Sloppily she pours some of her own in, passes it to Volstagg where he sits next to her. Hogun tips some in when it reaches him, and passes it on once more. Three times it is poured, and three times filled, before it comes back to her and she scratches Hasteinn Raudulfsson into it with her dagger.

By the time she has finished, Fandral is massively inflating the numbers of people he fought singlehandedly, as well as the clever comments he made to them all, and Volstagg is competing for attention with the tale of the steel-sinewed brigand from the furthest twigs of Yggdrasill whom he supposedly fought alone. She gets up and refills her tankard, head swimming a little.

In her absence, her seat has been filled; Volstagg’s son has hitched himself up and curled against his father’s side, and she gets Geirrun to move along so that she can stay near the centre of the group. Leaning back, she hears rather than sees someone sit down on the bench beyond the table at her back. “Thor! You’re late!”

In the soft gold light of a night-time hall, he glows. “I am sorry. I was in need of the bathhouse, and Father and Mother both wanted me.”

“I did not see you there,” Hogun remarks from where he sits on the table itself, one foot perilously close to her drink. She pushes it away and dodges his half-hearted swat at her.

Thor smiles and takes a drink. “A shame.”

The smile is a bit stretched, and Hogun is about to say something when Volstagg happens to look over and calls out, “Thor! I was just about to tell them how you bested the rock troll we thought would slaughter us all, one by one.”

“Kronan!” he says, raises the tankard, takes a deep breath. “They were a Kronan. And they wore armour over their stony body, and carried a club the size of my body. Some say Kronans carve the faces of their ancestors into their clubs, so they are never left behind.”

“This club was shot through with spikes,” adds Sigvard, and so the story continues.

Sif slides down in her seat so that she can look at Thor, and meets his eyes past the hand that props up his chin. For a second they seem bleak, remote, and then he shakes his head. “How fare the dead?”

“Well watered,” she replies. “So are we; it seems Rogeir was prepared.”

Thor smiles, and wonders how many people were prepared for this, how many people have spent the last while confidently expecting his triumphant return. The city buzzes with it tonight; keeping the peace a secret is both impossible and undesirable, and already people are composing songs and tales. A corner singer he passed on his way here was singing something with the refrain _quail all you foes for your end is at hand_ , and he had turned his head and moved faster. One of the groups he passed in Rogeir’s halls was listening enthusiastically to someone proclaiming that these ruffians wouldn’t try it again, now the king-to-come’s shown them what’s what.

The stories wash over them again, and Hogun starts the tale of Orrusti’s valiant death. To this Thor contributes heartily. The cup for the dead goes around again, and again for Grettir. Fandral has another tankard sent over for everyone, and Sif finishes hers to start on it. He leans forward and remarks, “Are you planning to re-enact that night in Rhega Lin?” Her reply is simply to keep drinking. By the time she’s done, the battle has escalated to involve a raging mob that stripped the trees of Vanaheim and turned the hills black.

As the smell of slopped-over beer intensifies the stories start taking in the earlier days of the war. Volstagg stands up and demands all eyes for a dramatic retelling of the defence of Doa Rath, or Haukabjarg. “And then Thor, all alone, came swooping through the massed forces of the enemy and laid them waste right left and centre, though the very sight of the Bifrost and the red cloak had put terror into the hearts of many.”

 _Not you too_. “I thank you for the compliment, old friend, but I was hardly alone. Why, I can see four men here now who marched beside me that day. And you and your men’s actions during the retreat from Ai Halu had weakened them so that though there were many, their bellies were empty and their hearts already afraid.”

For a second Volstagg meets his eyes, and then he grins. “Ah, see, I have been misremembering after the impression he made!”

Fandral raises an unsteady glass, says, “I am sure you were busy fighting the greatest warrior of them all,” and the moment is done. Thor lifts his tankard and takes a long drink as the story continues.

“Thor.” With a thump, Volstagg heaves himself onto the table and leans towards him, swaying a little. “What happened? Everyone’s telling these stories. You’re Asgard’s hero.”

 _Does he have to make something of this?_ “I know. I would just… I would rather just be your friend.”

“Unfortunately, you’re also the throne-heir of Asgard.” Even Fandral has strolled over, and is leaning nonchalently on the wall. At least Sif is fully engaged in the larger group and not even looking this way.

“Get your glory now, and it will be easier for you later.”

“I know, Hogun.” Abruptly he stands. “Will you excuse me? I have another errand tonight.”

As he starts to leave, Volstagg catches him by the shoulder. “Look. I’ll make sure everyone gets their proper due.”

It’s the best he is going to get, he thinks. “Thank you.”

Out of the corner of her eye Sif sees Thor stride off, and follows him. “There was a time when you would have celebrated for weeks.”

“I know.”

“We had the news that peace will be proclaimed not long after you left, and so we came. It’s your peace, Thor.” She narrows her eyes at him. These days, he seems so distant, for all she doesn’t miss the headstrong, reckless man he used to be. “Have another drink.”

“Enough is being drunk without me, I think.” He falls silent, sinks onto one of the quiet benches near the door as though he is twice his real weight. The cold breeze from outside strikes hard even through her fur-collared tunic. “Sif...”

Rather than reply, she sits down and leans on the wall.

“Heading your clan... how is it?”

She tips her head sideways on her neck and looks at him. “So that’s what’s eating you.” Last time, he had roared it to the rooftops and run a four-day party at his own expense. Reaching up, she claps him on the shoulder. “At first, terrifying. And my father taking orders from me was the strangest thing to ever happen to me. It gets easier. These days, it seems right.”

“Father said it would get easier, too.”

“He’s right.” The wall feels very slippery all of a sudden, and Sif uses her hand on his shoulder to hoist herself up to look right at him. “The Allfather has been a good king. You will be a great one. Yes, you will need to look harder, wider, longer at everything – people notice when your attention focusses in any single place – but you have good eyes, and the mind for it, especially now you know that rule is not just war and glory. I know you can’t forget last time, but you were not ready then. You are now. Have some faith in yourself.”

With the slight ghost of a smile, he looks down and shakes his head. “Mjollnir still comes to my hand, but every time I put it down, I worry I will not be able to pick it up.”

“You will.” She throws an arm around his neck. “Mjollnir’s no fool. It knows.”

“I am glad of your friendship, Lady Sif.”

“Not as much as I of yours, my lord Thor.”

“Must we do this again?”

“Only if you insist.”

Thor looks at her for a moment, smiles in a way she’s seen so rarely these last couple of years. “I yield before the match,” he says, and laughs. “I should go, though.”

 _That’s why we’re sitting here in the cold._ “Heimdall will wait.”

“I would rather not keep him that way.”

Reluctantly she lets go. He claps her on the side of the face and pulls his dark cloak closer about him to brave the snowy night. “Send my regards.”

“Of course,” he replies, and pushes aside the heavy thrice-felted blanket that keeps out the cold. “Enjoy, my friend. Tell the others to as well.” After a couple of seconds, his head pokes back in. “Mother told me to tell Fandral not to celebrate too riotously.”

“The message will reach him,” she says in a tone of mock seriousness, and stands upright almost as fluidly as though she was sober. They exchange a last grin, and he is gone into the darkness. For a moment, Sif stands there feeling more alone than she feels she has any right to. _He so rarely seems happy._ Then she strides back into the light and chatter, just in time to prevent Fandral from giving the impression that the victory at Frostvangar was due to his forces alone.


	5. Chapter 5

Heimdall is not clad for peace, Thor notices as he crosses the bridge, rainbows pooling at his feet. Now that he thinks of it, he has never seen Heimdall clad for peace. “Please excuse my lateness.” The cold air has lifted some of his weariness from him, but he can still feel it in his bones. 

“It’s been a busy day.”

“I suppose you know.”

“Perhaps. Though the tramping of returning soldiers’ boots can conceal much.”

It has been years since he started coming here more, newly aware that this is a man who can make and break kings, turn the tides of war, keep the security of the peace, tell him things that he desperately needs to know, and he still cannot read him. “The peace will be proclaimed, and on that day Father will proclaim my accession, though I don’t know when he will carry it through.” Maybe this was what Father and Sif had meant, the fact that every time he says it, the lurching of his stomach seems less.

“That I did know. I am glad of peace.”

Was the omission significant? Thor looks back towards Heimdall, and squashes the thought. The peace is more important.

Heimdall is silent a moment, then places both hands on his sword. The channels of the room respond, and the huge golden sphere around them rotates to bring the ancient skeleton sighting mechanism to face them. “I was the one to confirm your report. It cannot be perfect, but the ravages that started after the old Bifrost was destroyed are over; the Nine Realms lie easy tonight. It is good that it comes before the Convergence. Do you know what will happen then?”

“The realms will swing into alignment about Yggdrasill, before and behind Earth, and some parts of the realms will come so close that they touch without interference.”

“Indeed. It’s a great marvel, and I am fortunate to live through it and watch with these eyes. You cannot see, but already it begins, already the worlds are touching, channels darting between them. The view from here is magnificent.” A slight smile plays on his lips, and he nods at the navigation. “Between Burastjarna and Astubrenna, see; that is where they will all line up. But they will be visible alone; there will be Muspellheim, and from here it will seem naught but a great conflagration of fire, and there beside it Jotunheim, and Nidavellir, and Midgard. And so it will go down to distant Niflheim, which will seem barely a pinprick of light in the darkness to most eyes.”

“But you will see.” Looking out into the black, he tries to imagine how it must appear, the realms moving closer; whether the connections spark across like lightning, whether the subtle aurorae are already appearing in Earth’s skies. Whether Jane has noticed. Sometimes he wishes he had Heimdall’s eyes, but they have their function and their function will never be his. “All realms will see it, then?”

“Every soul in the Nine will see, though beyond that – who can say? Some of them already are.” For a second their eyes meet, and Heimdall smiles. “Yes, she has noticed, for all that SHIELD have tried to stop her.”

“I am glad.” He falls silent, thinks about Jane Foster, thinks about the fact that in a few days he will no longer be bound by his father’s command not to leave the realm save on the most necessary of grounds. It had been made very clear that visiting her was not considered a necessity, especially given the ‘potential political inconvenience of the position,’ as it had been worded. The stars are cold, impassive, and somewhere, beyond them, she could be looking back. “Is she watching? Now?”

“She was before you arrived. In fact, at the moment she –”

Again fear surges in Thor’s chest. “What is it?”

Heimdall holds up a hand and stalks closer to the edge, so close that his toes rest on the abyss. After a second he shuts his eyes, moves a hand, and the channels of energy in the room reconfigure themselves so that even the noise of the waterfalls is dampened. Thor stands motionless, careful not to break the silence. At last he turns, a frown visible under his helmet. “I can’t see her.”


End file.
